One Kiss
by ladyofdarkstar
Summary: “With one kiss, he changed my world. I was no longer ‘Alice,’ no longer a drone. I had become… something more.” A story of what happened after the stolen kiss between Sam and Alice in RotF. Reviews are love!
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is something that crawled into my brain after watching RotF for the, um, millionth time? LOL I happen to love that movie, even with all it's inconsistencies and the like. It still makes me grin every time I hear Optimus or Ironhide speak. What can I say? I'm a total fangirl. :P Believe it or not, I was inspired by one of the lines from the Fallen--that the All-Spark energy cannot be destroyed, it can only transform. So, given that, and given how the All-Spark in the first movie reacted to almost any Cybertronian it came in contact with, I thought this to myself: What would have happened if the All-Spark energy was active in Sam when Alice kissed him? The result is this story. I hope you enjoy it as muc has I do. :D

I would like to take the time to thank Razorgaze for her awesomeness in beta work. She keeps up with me even with how erratic I am with writing and ideas. She's also a great author as well. Her story "Our Debt" is a wonderful read and is linked in my profile page. Go read it if you have the time. It's very much worth it. :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but any OCs I happen to create. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun and I'm not making any money from it.

* * *

Chapter One

I watched them pull away, noting the self-satisfied smirk on Mikaela Banes's face. Not that I could blame her, really. Had I found another femme attempting to spark with my mech, I would have done a lot more than ram her repeatedly into a lamp post. A _lot_more. But then again, she was only an organic, with an organic's short temper and lack of ability to completely process actions to their logical conclusion.

Had she done so, she would have known it would take more than being crushed between substandard steel to end my existence.

Still, I let the illusion of death cover me, let the human world think that I was no more. And when humans came to investigate the accident, I gave the illusion of my parts melting into a foul-smelling soup, sliding away into the storm drains on the side of the street. Allowing the fleshlings to believe I was destroyed was one thing, allowing them to take me into custody was something else entirely.

With any luck, one of the little meat creatures captured my death with their video equipment. With a touch more of the luck, that video would come across Soundwave's optics, and the Decepticons would believe I was offlined, too. Primus, let it be so, I prayed silently as I transformed under my illusion, becoming thin and small enough to filter through the before-mentioned storm drain.

Because after that one kiss, that one attempt to touch the mind of Samuel James Witwicky, everything changed. In that one attempt, I had touched something… more.

They say that, in the course of a Cybertronian lifespan, a mech or femme was expected to have at least three epiphanies. The first being the notion of self-awareness, the next having to do with selecting one's future profession based on the programming and personal tastes one acquires along their life-journey. The last being the moment a mech or femme laid optics on he or she that would become their sparkmate.

But those glorious moments were saved only for the mechs and femmes. Drones like me? It was unheard of to have a revelation. We were symbionts, created for a specific purpose and not for independent thought. We weren't strong or determined, or even possessed of any kind of real self-awareness. We existed to serve and that was all.

Until now.

Until the moment that I kissed Sam Witwicky and experienced that first epiphany of utter self-awareness.

I leaned against the concrete pipe wall of the storm drain system, a three-pronged hand pressing against the wondrous pulse of a spark of my own. I had a spark to begin with, don't get me wrong. But it was a spark-splinter, a piece of a stronger mech's spark that he placed in me at my creation. It made me his drone, his slave for lack of a better term. But now… now the spark in me pulsed of its own accord.

I smiled, finding it rather ironic that I overheard Leo telling Sam that I might have put something inside of him, when in actuality _he_ had put something inside of _me_. But what did that make me? Was I Cybertronian still, or a human half-breed? Was I considered a femme now and not a drone? Was I still a Decepticon or now an Autobot? Was the choice even mine?

The second real emotion to cross my mainframe was that of fear. Real and true and circuit-paralyzing fear. I couldn't go back to the Decepticons now, not being a self-aware femme. Starscream would kill me on sight, trying to maintain the ironclad reign of fear and control that Megatron had instilled. The Fallen certainly would not welcome me into the fold, either. That mech hated femmes more than any other Decepitcon in existence.

But could I bend knee to the Autobots? Would they even believe me if I tried, or would they fire at me on sight like Starscream would have? And how would I explain this to them in the first place? Drones don't act independently, not unless their mech creator was destroyed, and even then they were slightly insane from the loss of that bond. Most were simply offlined for their own good.

I vented air rapidly, terrified down to my core programming. How had this human boy done this to me? How had one kiss created so much havoc?


	2. Chapter 2 Emerging

A/N: Woohoo chapter 2 is up! Thanks to all that review, read, and made this story a favorite. This has got to be one of the more challenging stories I have written to date, and the fact that you like it makes me want to write more. :) I'm doing some rather different things with the concepts of Drones in this story. I apologize if it isn't very much cannon as the story progresses. Just how this plays out in my head.

Much love to Razorgaze, my beta for all things Transformer. :) She's amazing and her story "Our Debt" is worth the read. It's linked in my profile page. I know you will love it as much as I do!

Disclaimer: Hasbro owns everything at this point. I claim only any OC that may appear. Please don't sue. This is purely for fun. No money is being made.

* * *

Chapter 2

I stayed in the storm drain tunnels for five standard earth cycles. It had only taken two of those cycles to repair the damage fully, now that I had nanites of my own. That was another bizarre surprise on a journey of extraordinary revelations. I had my own nanites and could only assume that they appeared at the same time the spark in my chest had become self-aware. It took some getting used to, having them crawling around inside my parts. But after a while they became like a subroutine in the back of my processors, always there and yet no longer of real concern.

At least, with them, I wasn't alone.

Two cycles of repair left me plenty of time for private contemplation. I was a femme now, that much was painfully obvious. And that lent a whole new level of problematic equations for me to puzzle through. I was a femme and I was alone, a neutral for lack of better terminology. I would need things in order to maintain my existence. An energon supply, parts for when my nanites couldn't quite repair any damage I might incur, and some form of … of companionship.

Having gone from being the lesser in a symbiotic relationship for my entire existence, the notion of being truly alone was terrifying. No, it was beyond terrifying. It was spark-breaking. And the presence of my nanites couldn't keep that terror at bay for long. I was going to have to remove myself from hiding soon. To do that, I was going to need something else.

A new name. A new face. A whole new identity. After all, if I could not join with my own kind, I could attempt to mingle with the fleshlings.

It pleased me to no end to actually craft my own image for the first time. Alice had been the amalgamation of every human femme on the planet that boys like Sam would have found irresistible. The blond hair, the blue eyes, the model-thin body. Even a slightly exotic and overly accentuated accent to her words. All crafted by Soundwave, of course, and all designed to get me closer to the boy.

This time I got to choose. I can't express how happy that made me.

I went with reddish-brown hair this time, sun-kissed skin with a very faint sprinkling of freckles across the nose and cheeks. Wide, hazel-green eyes and a generous pouty mouth, shamelessly stolen from Mikaela, of course. I figured that she owed me that much from trying to run me down. Regardless, I found the combination pleasing. My fleshly body was athletic this time instead of rail-thin, just about five pounds overweight for my so-called height and build. I wanted to look real this time, not like some over-the-top sexual creature.

My objective was to blend in, not to stand out this time around.

And then I took the time to scan the telephone conversations of the human femmes around me. It all seemed to revolve around college classes, which boy was the cutest, and where to find the best deal on the trendiest clothing. Credit cards maxed out and troubles with money abounded, too. I was going to need to get to a computer terminal soon. I needed a name, something called a social security number, and a lot of these plastic credit cards. I also needed to enroll in this educational facility.

On the fifth day of my self-awareness, with my spark racing so badly I thought it would explode out of my chassis, I emerged from my storm drain and prepared myself to join the human world.


	3. Chapter 3 Setting Up

A/N: I am so glad everyone enjoys this idea as much as I do. :) This has to be my favorite story to write at the moment. So thank you for reviewing and enjoying the story. :D

A major thanks to Razorgaze, my wonderful beta in all things Transformers. Her story, "Our Debt" is linked in my profile page. Please do read it. It is so worth the time. :D

Breem is 8.3 minutes, Joor is 6.5 hours, Orn is 13 days and Vorn is 84 years earth time.

Disclaimer: I can only dream of owning any of this, save for any OCs I might create. Please do not sue. I am making no money from this. It is purely for fun.

* * *

Chapter 3

Less than a joor out of hiding and I already wanted to crawl back into my nice, safe storm drain. Two Autobots prowled around the school campus in their disguises, hunting for Primus only knew what. Scouts they were, Bumblebee and Hound by human designation. The thought that they were there looking for me, that somehow they knew I still existed, made my battle systems scream for activation. Not that I would know what to do with a battle system, anyway. So much of my programming was new to me now.

I was like a child, both in the human world and in the Cybertronian one. But unlike a child, I had no support structure to protect me, to teach and guide me. I was on my own. And if it was one thing that my life with the Decepticons taught me about the Autobots, it was that they wouldn't attack a group of humans. So into the crowd of students I went, heading towards what I hoped was the main computer lab.

I grabbed the first open terminal I could find, and, glancing around to make sure no one was paying too much attention to me, I let the tip of my pinky finger on my right hand transform into a hair-thin probe. Down into the keyboard it went, slipping between keys and plastic to the wire connecting it to the computer. I moved my fingers across the keys, calling up whatever website that the girls around me were into. It seemed a fashion site called "Vogue" was of import to them. I pretended to scan the pages of shoes and clothing and makeup while my processors did the real work.

I needed a simple name, one that wouldn't stand out too much but not lost to obscurity, either. A quick search for popular femme names of the last human year revealed a list of twenty names and their meanings. One in particular caught my optic: Zoe. I liked that one. It meant 'life.' That was the one word that meant the most to me now. _Life._ The name Kaitlyn was also of interest, in that it meant 'pure.' Given that I had never mated and I was certainly as pure as a Cybertronian could be in my current state of awareness, it seemed to work.

I was to be called Zoe Kaitlyn. _Zoe Kaitlyn_. I rolled the designation around in my processors and found that I liked it a great deal. It was _my_ name. The first thing I had truly had as my own in my entire existence.

And now for a surname... My optics caught an add for Ralph Lauren on the Vogue page. Next to it was an article talking about his daughter Dylan and her new candy shop company. I rather liked that name of Dylan, too. But the spelling needed to change.

So I became Zoe Kaitlyn Dillyn. A few more twists of programming here and there and I became Zoe Kaitlyn Dillyn, freshmen on campus with full scholarship, recently enrolled during the add/drop period of classes. I was an only child whose parents died in a car accident when I was seventeen. I was nineteen now, with a healthy trust fund due to the life insurance my parents had at the time of their deaths. And in three to four business days, I would have the documentation and credit cards to prove it.

I had no family, no one to challenge my background. No one to stand in my way…except for those two Autobot scouts, that was. So far they had not taken notice of me, and I had other pressing concerns. Like… meeting my new dorm mate and picking up my books and supplies from the campus store.

I can't explain why that was suddenly more pressing that the idea of Autobots raining a hail of plasma fire down on my head. It just was. And the fact that I could make that decision was a heady thrill that kept my systems warm for a long time to come.


	4. Chapter 4 Charlotte

A/N: The reviews and support for this story have been amazing! I honestly thought no one would have any interest in an Alice story. I am glad that you have surprised me. :) So thank you again for making this a favorite and putting it on your alerts.

Special shout-out goes to Razorgaze, my wonderful beta in all things Transformers. Her story "Our Debt" is one of my personal favorites. The link is in my profile page. Read it. :) you will love it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs. This is purely for fun. Please do not sue. I am not making any money from this.

* * *

Chapter 4

"You must be Zoe. Hey, I'm Charlotte."

I looked at the hand thrust towards me, taking a nano-klik to reference what the human gesture meant. Ah, a sign of greetings and trust, created a couple of hundred earth years ago to show that the person before you was unarmed and unwilling to cause you harm for the moment. I shifted the stack of books from one arm to the other, making a show of how heavy they supposedly were. To a human femme of my build, it would have been an uncomfortable load.

I smiled, taking her outstretched hand gently but firmly in my own. "Hello Charlotte. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Charlotte's smile faded a bit around the edges, and inwardly I winced. My greeting was too formal, the etiquette procedures I had selected for my verbal exchange with my new room mate not quite what was necessary. Quickly I placed my books on the empty side of the room, sighing and pretending to work a kink out of my back.

"Sorry," I said, flashing what I hoped was an embarrassed and apologetic smile in her direction. "Nervous as all hell. Didn't mean to be so formal."

Charlotte's smile returned to full wattage. "Don't worry about it. First time away from home, I take it?"

Oh, how much I wanted to tell her how true that really was. "Yeah, this place… it's a little overwhelming."

"It can be," Charlotte giggled good-naturedly. "Is the rest of your luggage out in the hall?"

I froze, yet again cursing myself. Of course she would want to know where my belongings were. I couldn't very well produce a different holographic set of clothing each day and not have it go unnoticed. And my credit cards were still days away. I had to come up with a reason quickly and latched onto the first thought that entered my processors.

"Lost in the move," I sighed, sitting down on the bed and placing my head in my hands. "I don't know what I am going to do. My credit cards won't arrive for a couple of days."

"Man, that's horrible," my roommate replied, settling down on the bed next to me and draping an arm across my shoulders. "I'm sure they will turn up soon. Not everything stays lost forever. You have enough cash on hand to get you through? I know it's not the best, but there's a thrift store down the road and a Target nearby. At least get you a pair of jeans and some shirts."

Her arm was warm against my skin, her hair smelling of herbs and wild flowers and just a touch of human musk. I loved it, and more than that, I loved the tender show of affection. Decepticons would have mocked me, laughed and used me as target practice had I told them that I lost items essential to my functionality. Charlotte offered gentle touch and hope. It was such a contrast to my former life that the emotions overran my thought processes. My human image began to leak fluid from the eyes, which prompted Charlotte to turn the gentle draping of her arm into a full embrace.

And for reasons I would never be able to explain, that one action undid me. All the fear, the pain, the horrible knowledge of knowing that you could never go back to the place you once belonged, that you were absolutely alone in the universe, crashed through every block I had in place.

"I'm all alone," I sobbed into her arms. "I'm alone and I don't have anything of value to offer anyone. What am I going to do?"

Charlotte's hand smoothed over my hair, soothing sounds coming from her mouth. "You don't have anyone you can call?"

I shook my head against her shoulder. "No. My family is gone. I don't have any friends here."

I felt wetness falling against my hair, and I looked up to see Charlotte crying, too. "Don't worry, Zoe," she said. "We're going to make it through this. We girls have to stick together."

And then I uttered the words that would have meant certain death in the Decepticon frame of thought. "Wi..will you help me? I promise I will find some way to repay you. Just… please, I need help."

"Of course!" Charlotte exclaimed, wrapping me in a tight embrace once again. "Don't cry anymore. Why don't you borrow a towel and some soap and stuff from me, go take a shower and I'll order us some food. After a hot meal and a shower, you'll feel better, trust me. We'll work on the rest tomorrow."

I took the items she put into my hands and made my way down to the shower area, wondering what I was going to do next.

~*~

I waited until Charlotte was fully asleep before sneaking out of our shared room. Still, I paused in the doorway to glance back at her. She was pretty in the human standards, with long black hair and bright blue eyes. Her frame was thin and rounded, soft like Mikaela's. Her nose was a bit too long, too narrow for her face, but to me it made her all the more perfect in my eyes. She was real. Not some sculpted fantasy come to life.

Charlotte rolled on her side, unconsciously flinching away from the light spilling through the doorway from the hall. The remnants of our meal—Chinese vegetable soup, crab Rangoon, and a shared order of beef with broccoli—sat on the small folding table between our beds. We had shared the food after my shower, and I spent the rest of the night listening to her talk about her family and friends back home in Texas. It was so strange, but unlike when I tried to seduce Sam, I did not have to force a laugh or a smile when Charlotte made a joke.

I had really laughed, truly found humor in her words. And found solace when she told me that I didn't have to tell her about myself yet if the memories were still too painful. My alluding to the recent death of my family was all she needed to hear. It was a rare kindness.

It was a memory I was going to treasure for the rest of my existence.

I closed the door on my new friend, heading back down the hall to the toilet facilities. There I emptied my tank of the nutrient food items I had ingested, taking a moment to pass a high powered UV sanitation light over the storage tank. The last thing I needed was to smell like rotting human food. That mission complete, I set about my real task for the night.

For I had told Charlotte that I had some kind of money on me, and she had promised to take me into town to gain clothing and various items that I needed. The money was waiting for me in an account, scammed from these 'off-shore, untraceable accounts' that humans used to hide their finances from their own government. I had bounced the money transfers all over the globe and back again in less than a human hour, ensuring that the original owners could not trace it back to me.

And even if they were lucky enough to do that, I was more than prepared to deal with them. Though I felt like a child in a grown-up body, I at least knew that the adult body possessed skills enough to protect itself. A regular non-military human, while not something I would kill lightly anymore, did not pose even the slightest threat to me.

I had money. What I needed was a way to access it.

I took a stroll through the campus, heading in the direction of a frat party Charlotte had mentioned in passing. She wasn't the type to attend those things regularly, afraid of being that drunk around people she didn't know. I shared those sentiments greatly. I did not relish the idea of loosing control of my systems around just anyone. Still, a frat party would be the perfect place to find what I needed.

What I needed was a debit card. Any debit card would do.

What I didn't need was the yellow Camero with the distinctive Autobot emblem heading towards me like the Pit, itself, was in pursuit.


	5. Chapter 5 Neutral

A/N: This is going to be my standard opening for a while. The pain is still too close. I want to apologize for the long wait on some of my stories. I recently lost a good friend of mine and fellow fanfic writer and the loss was much harder than I anticipated. It really stunted whatever creative power I had and left me in a state of much sorrow. It's hard to realize just how much people influence our lives and our passions until they are no longer there. For the next while all my stories are going to be dedicated to her.

**AJ. I will miss you. I will miss you and your laughing encouragement more than I can ever say. This one is for you.**

Special thanks to Razorgaze as my Beta, and Hummergrey for her constant friendship during this sad time. You both render me speechless with your skills, friendship and dedication. Please check out their fics. The links are in my profile page. And thank you to everyone that has sent me private messages or positive thoughts in the reviews. Those help so much. I can't thank you enough.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC's. I am not making any money from this. Please do not sue.

* * *

Chapter 5

I could run.

The thought flashed across my processors so quickly that I nearly acted on the notion before I caught myself. Bumblebee was an Autobot and a rather powerful one at that, which was reason enough to flee the situation in the first place. Add to the fact that he was Samuel's guardian and any sane processor would have suggested a strategic retreat in short order. It was well known that 'Bee would kill to protect his human. And if he caught hold of a 'Con that had even thought about causing harm to his charge…

It was one of the nightmares that every 'Con had on this planet. Optimus wasn't the only boogiemech that a Decepticon feared hid under his recharge berth.

It would have been smart to run. And yet my feet were rooted as if into the earth. I kept thinking of Charlotte, of that scant few hours of talking and eating and laughing. I thought of the memories I had tasted in Sam's mind before his femme had walked in on us. The taste, the feeling of true contentment and love and friendship… I had experienced it through his memories and now through my own with Charlotte.

I didn't want to be without that again. I had finally made a friend, someone that liked me for me, not because of what I could give them. I didn't want to run from that, because if I ran from the Autobots now, I would run from them for the rest of my existence on earth. And that meant I would give up a lot of friends like Charlotte. It seemed too much sorrow even for a spark like mine to bear.

The Camero roared to a halt against the curb, the driver staring at me from across the passenger seat. Blue eyes, too blue to belong to a human, gazed at me from a lean, nondescript face. He knew what I was, that much was evident in his optics. The question became, did he know _who_ I was, and if he did, what he intended to do about it.

"Get in," he said, his holoform leaning across the passenger seat to pretend to open the door.

I could still run, I thought. There was still time to start over somewhere else. I didn't have to prove anything to anyone. I was a neutral now. I wasn't even sure if I carried the same energy signature of before. I really didn't have to get into the car.

I found myself sliding onto the leather seat anyway, silently reaching across for the seat belt as the door closed on its own. 'Bee spun his back tires in an over-exaggerated squeal, a perfect sound to be heard on campus. It might have stood out wrongly if he hadn't. And why not? Sitting in the cab of his alt mode was an attractive male and an attractive female. Why shouldn't he try to impress her?

It was all for show, of course. The moment we cleared campus property, the somewhat smile on his face faded. "What is your designation?"

I stared straight ahead, wracking my processors to come up with the Ancient Cybertronian protocols of surrender. Surely he would honor those, right? "Where are you taking me?"

"That depends on your answer."

I flicked a glance at his holoform before staring back at the open road. Not many cars roaming the night this close to campus. Most of the stores and shops and places to consume nutrients closed down around 10:00pm at the behest of the university, or so Charlotte had said. It was the main reason we had decided to call it a night instead of going shopping right away. Something about promoting students to study instead of party all night.

Though, in my estimation, that completely backfired. The lack of something to do at night promoted more frat parties than studying.

And none of these random computations were bringing me any closer to an answer for my would-be captor.

I took a long intake of air, preparing my systems for the worst. "I don't have a designation," I stated. "I am a neutral in this war."

"Neutral," 'Bee echoed, turning down a small side street that led into the middle of nowhere. "What is your clan, then?"

"I don't have one."

The holoform raised an eyebrow. "An independent neutral?"

He sounded like he didn't believe me. I wouldn't have believed me, either, had I not, well, been me. But it was the truth. A small smile touched my lips at that. It was a lot easier to tell the truth than I would have expected. The Decepticons had turned the word 'truth' into something ugly and vile. Here, among the humans, speaking to this Autobot who would very likely end me this night, I couldn't help but feel a lightness of my spark. If was going to be offlined tonight, at least I would do so with a clean conscious.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hound was waiting for us in the clearing of a little wooded area. He stood in his bi-pedal form and I tipped my head to the side, trying to figure out if I was pleased to see him. We had had a run-in before, he and I, both scouting for our respective sides in this idiotic war. My weapons and armor were better then, before being stripped down to become 'Alice.' Hound and I had exchanged volley after volley of plasma fire, trying to end each other.

Then, it had seemed so important… so right and just to see him reduced to slag. And all for what? A world now devoid of life, a veritable Pit that held more dead than it had ever held hope. The energon in my tanks churned, shame overwhelming my spark. I had assisted in that, and whether or not I had done so as a drone or as a willing participant, my hands still dripped with the spilled energon of innocence.

I hoped that he would recognize me. I sincerely did, even though I knew that it wasn't likely that he would. Our exchange had been in the heat of battle, and anything—even fallen comrades—had become shields to hide behind. If I had to live the rest of my life with this knowledge, this self-aware _guilt_ for what I had been programmed to do, I did not want the new spark in my chest.

Bumblebee had barely come to a halt before I was removing the safety belt and attempting to exit his alt mode.

"Wait," he commanded, his holorform reaching over to touch mine. "What just went through that processor of yours?"

I tried to shrug off his hand. His touch was as gentle as Charlotte's had been and yet this time it did not bring me comfort. If anything, it brought me more pain. How odd, that the same gesture could bring drastic differences in emotions from me. He was scanning me, of that I could be certain. He had registered the shift in my energy levels when I had caught sight of Hound.

"You know him," he tried again, the fingers on my shoulder closing, holding me firmly but gently.

"Yes," I admitted, my voice without emotion. I didn't want to show him what I was feeling, not yet at least.

'Bee pursed his lips, shaking his head. It reminded me so much of Sam. "Not good enough, neutral. I need to know more before I allow you to come in contact with my friend."

"The battle of Iacon," I whispered, keeping my optics focused on the earthen ground just outside his window.

'Bee nodded, as if that explained almost everything. "I understand," he replied, squeezing my shoulder in a very human expression of comfort. "You do not need to go into details at this time regarding… that. Understand that we need to confirm who you are, and if you are indeed a neutral, such standing will be accorded to you and passed on to the Decpeticons as well."

My optics flared at that, and the fear that ran through my systems must have been palpable. Primus, I could not let either of them transmit that information to the Decepticons! They would know I was still onlined if they didn't already. And what of my creator, Thundercracker? How would he take the news that I had betrayed the Decepticons all for the friendship of a short-lived organic fleshling?

All because of one ill-fated kiss!

It felt like my cooling fans were insignificant in comparison to the heat wafting off my parts. I was, for lack of a better term, panicking. Had I been human, I would be close to hyperventilating. I couldn't go back to the Decepticons. But I couldn't stay as a neutral, not if it meant my designation needed to be broadcast to my former faction.

"N-no," I think I managed to get my suddenly glitchy vocal processor to expel. "No-no, please. I beg you. Don't do this. Please. Don't broadcast that. Just let me go. I will swear any oath you require. Please. Don't…."

"Easy. Easy, calm your systems," 'Bee was trying to tell me, concern replacing the sternness in his holoform's eyes. His hands held me tighter, cupping my face and trying to force my optics to focus on his. "Stop. You will put yourself into stasis if you keep this up!"

My holoform faded, my control slipping. All I knew was that I had to get out of this place. I had to protect my new spark. And if I couldn't do it under the banner of neutrality, I would have to do it on my own.


	6. Chapter 6 Panic

A/N: It's been a while. Sorry about that. All I have to say this time is this: When you enjoy someone's stories, please review. When you like them enough to message them, please do. You never know when that one person will be gone from your life. You don't want to regret never saying hello when you had the chance. Thank you all who have supported me in this dark time. Your reviews and messages mean more than I can ever say. The days are getting better for me and I think I have passed through the worst of the grief. Now it's the healing time...

My story is beta'd by the incredible Razorgaze. Please check out her story "Our Debt." There's a link to it in my profile page.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs. Please do not sue. I am not making any money and this is purely for fun.

* * *

I don't quite remember what happened next. One minute my clawed digits reached with a frantic need towards the release mechanism in his alt mode's door, and the next I was dumped onto the soft brown earth. There was a flash of memory, a bit of seeing 'Bee's holoform vanish into a million dots of light and his alt mode rocking on its axels at a steep angle. The door in my hand was suddenly open and just as suddenly I was dumped onto the ground.

I had about a nano-klik to try and scramble away, my vocal processor emitting the high-frequency keening of absolute terror. I couldn't remember who I was afraid of now. Was it the thought of being blasted by these two Autobots for my past crimes? Was it the thought of being branded a traitor and hunted down by the Decepticons? Or was it the processor-killing agony of being forced back into place as a Drone, to be under the command of Thundercracker again?

Or maybe, possibly, was I afraid of my own freedom to choose my fate?

"'Bee, get her!" Hound was saying. "She's going to go into shock-stasis if we don't calm her down!"

The thin whip-like appendages attached to my helm whipped out in my frantic escape attempt, the razor-sharp ends slashing at the armored hands that tried to restrain me. I didn't want to be touched, not if it meant having to choose one of those horrible fates in processors spun out for me. What good was this freedom of choice and self-awareness if all I could choose were bad things?

"NO!" I screeched, not even sure if it was in any human language or in Cybetronian. "NO! I won't do it. You can't make me! Please, don't make me choose this! I'm begging you, don't send me back. Don't kill me. Please, let me go. I just want to go!"

Curses mingled in the night air, some in human languages and others in our own, and all coming from the two mechs attempting to subdue me. Their armored hands dipped and wove, trying to penetrate the sharp net I wove as a defensive measure. I felt each slice to their hands, each time they snapped one of my tendrils either by accident or on purpose.

It hurt. It had never hurt before to loose one. Skywarp used to enjoy grabbing me by those ends and tying them around whatever uncomfortable item that happened to be around. And still, it wouldn't hurt. He would laugh as I tried to get free, and the others would join in. Only Thundercracker would defend me, and only because I was his drone. It was harder and harder to replace my parts as the war consumed more and more of our worlds.

That was the only reason he had stopped them.

It dawned on me, in that chaos and panic, that maybe Thundercracker had disabled my pain receptors on purpose. Whatever Sam had done to me with that kiss, whatever power that human processed that brought a real and true spark to life in my chamber, had reactivated those receptors.

I howled out my pain, both physical and the one in my spark as that realization filtered through my processors. Having no pain receptors meant I would go on and on, regardless of the damage I took, until I either completed my assigned tasks, or I offlined permanently.

And still those armored hands came at me, grabbing my parts like Skywarp would, trying to grab my chassis like Thundercracker would.

"It hurts!" I cried. "Please, stop hurting me! Stop! I didn't mean it. I'll do better next time, Master. Please!"

"Primus, what did they do to her?" Hound snarled, hands trying once more to reach me. "Fragging 'Cons! I'm going to have their sparks for this!"

"Gotta calm her down," 'Bee answered. "No field medic around to give her a sedative. Comm'ed Ratchet."

"Might as well be half a galaxy away at this point. He's not going to get here in time. We have to do this ourselves."

Do what? What were they going to do to me this time? Why did it have to hurt so much? I didn't have time to process anything further. A set of armored hands made it past my defenses, latching onto my chassis while the other set managed to corral as many of my tendrils as possible. I was lifted from the ground, regardless of the way my hands clawed at it, trying to find purchase in the soft earth.

What I expected wasn't what I received.

No sooner had my last servo left the brown earth, I found myself crushed against an armored chest. I froze, a mourning sound leaving my vocal processor this time, and waited. Waited for Thundercracker's chest plates to open, waited for his hands to activate the transform sequence and turn me into a cube to fit in his compartment. I was a drone, after all. I was pulled out for use as needed and returned to storage when I wasn't.

I never dreamed as a cube. I never pondered my existence, or what choices I wanted to make. I simply… ceased to exist. Vorns could pass before I was needed again. Vorns of literal nothingness. I whimpered again, all the fight leaving me. I wasn't strong enough to fight Thundercracker. And after this latest bout of panic, it would serve me right if he made me into a cube and then melted the cube down to slag.

I wondered idly if I would dream then, or if a drone suddenly made conscious of itself would be welcomed into the Matrix.

"Easy," Hound was saying, somehow managing to hold my tendrils and stroke them gently at the same time. "We won't hurt you. Primus knows you've been through enough. Easy now. That's a girl. Feel his spark. Let your own calm."

His spark? I onlined the optics I had shut off in my panic, daring to scan the mech before me. Bumblebee held my chassis against his, his grip as tender as I'd ever felt it. My spark chamber was on level with his, and his burned with such a gentle strength it literally froze my processors for a moment. I had never felt anything like that before. Sure, for moments I had felt Thundercracker's spark on the times he reactivated me. But it was never open like this. His energies had never felt like this.

My spark couldn't help but respond to that earnest open energy. It slowed, little by little, but finally slow it did to match the pulse of his.

My whimpers started to subside, and I dared to let one trembling three-clawed hand touch lightly on his chest armor. He hummed softly to me, a sound of encouragement. I let myself look up into his optics, mine so wide with fear. His so open with freely given strength.

And like that gentle touch from Charlotte hours ago, I allowed myself to let go of my emotions. I keened in his hands, both servos clutching to him, the tendrils that had tried to slash and cut now weaving around Hound's open palms, trembling, too, as they clutched at his fingers.

"Is she a sparkling?" Hound asked, amazement in his tone.

I felt 'Bee shake his head, and found that I was calm enough to realize that he didn't speak to me with a vocal processor, but with clips from human music and movies. In his holoform, he had sounded like Vin Deisel, and I only knew that from the movie Charlotte had put on in the background while we had talked.

"No," 'Bee replied, using a clip I had never heard before. "No, she knew you, Hound. She knew you from Iacon." The last word was spelled out.

I felt his shock in the way he jerked slightly at the admission, the sharp intake of air in his vents. But his hands remained still. He did not pull away.

"We have to tell Prime," he answered softly, fingers flexing in attempts to sooth.

"Agreed. Ratchet is already on his way. ETA in eight Earth hours. Four if Prime gives Silverbolt permission to subsonic it all the way. I think for this, he will."

Hounded nodded, and I felt a gentle scan from him, enough that I shivered under it and clutched tightly to 'Bee, to the warm safety of his spark. 'Bee responded with more of the humming sound.

"Maybe she should come with us," 'Bee said.

This time I shook my head. "Please, I just want to go back to Charlotte," I whispered timidly, terror leaking through the subdued tone. "Take me back to my roommate."


	7. Chapter 7 Fear

A/N: I apologize for yet another long absense. For those of you who have stayed with me, thank you so much and please forgive me? College is killing my free time and my social life. ::falls over with extreme fatigue:: But at least I managed to get another chapter out. I hope you all like it. I also hope that my psychology class didn't show through too much and make this chapter hard to understand. Please let me know if it is, and I'll go back through and correct it.

FF has changed some of the symbols it allows on a line. Normally I would use "~*~*~*~" to indicate a break in the story somewhere. Alas that is no longer recognized, so I am using "~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~" instead.

As always, much love to my betas: Razorgaze and Hummergrey. They are fantastic and their writing amazes me. Check out their stories. The links are in my profile page.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs. Please don't sue. This is only for fun.

* * *

I did not like the medic, though that had nothing to do with him at first and everything to do with my own fears.

Decepticons did not have 'medics.' They had 'upgrading stations' instead of medical facilities. And it was considered a good idea to use an upgrading station after a battle with the Autobots, not to repair some damaged system but to 'update and improve a malfuctioning system' in order to ensure you could kill your opponent in the next encounter. No Decepticon in thier right processors would admit to having an injury. Because an injury meant a weakness. And asking for help was most definitely out of the question. The only reason a Decepticon would let another of his kind anywhere near him with his defenses down was if he was permanently offlined. Because then the scavenging would begin, parts and pieces of armor literally raped from the lifeless.

It was the Decepticon way. Admitting you were hurt was a definite weakness. Worse, it was a like announcing to the known universe that you were tired of existing.

I had heard stories of what happened to drones that had been broken but not offlined. They ended up in the claws of Scalpel, the wicked little scientist bot who had no qualms about ripping the weak to pieces. Though I was bigger than Scalpel, stronger than him even, I was not as smart or as crafty. And, before I had kissed Sam, Scalpel had had the one thing I had lacked: a spark.

That status alone vaulted him miles above me in the chain of command.

Even Megatron walked carefully around that psychopathic tiny bot, never knowing when he would tire of his current experiments. Or perhaps, tire of his status in the Decepticon hierarchy and try for something more. Thundercracker once confessed to his trine-mate, Skywarp, that on more than one occasion, Starscream had come out of recharge with a nasty coding virus in his mainframe. Though no one could truly point a servo at Scalpel as the culprit, everymech knew he had done it.

No one else had the ability to bypass all the security protocols the paranoid Seeker had in place while he recharged.

So facing what I assumed was the Autobot version of Scalpel did little to calm my frizzling circuits. If anything, it engaged my reflexes triple-fold. Ratchet seemed to notice my distress at his appearance, though in retrospect it really wasn't that hard to take note of. I was almost crawling over Bumblebee's shoulder in my haste to get away, keening at the top of my vocal processor in my terror.

"Please," I begged, switching between Cybertronian and English with every other word. I couldn't concentrate enough to hold one language in place, nevertheless take the time to process translations when one set of words couldn't meet the demands of what I wanted to say. "Please, no! Don't! I'm still online! Don't scavenge me! Please! My parts are fine! PLEASE!"

To his credit, 'Bee hummed and crooned, twisting this way and that in an attempt to hold me still. Part of me felt bad for not making this easier on my would-be savior, but that part was buried under the internal klaxon call of panic. I had just come to sentience. I was just learning the wonderful things that having sentient thought meant. I couldn't be scavenged yet! It wasn't fair!

It took Hound reaching over and grabbing my hair-like tendrils. I let out one final screech as he pried me loose from 'Bee's armor, flopping and squirming in his hands like an organic fish out of water. "Stop, little femme! Listen to me, you are going to be fine. He's not going to hurt you. I promise. Now fraggin' stop it!"

And just like that, the fight left me. I couldn't run away from these three bots, not to mention the huge black mech named Ironhide that looked on with vague annoyance in his optics. I knew him, and his reputation with his cannons. I was willing to bet any earthly sum that had I succeeded in escaping 'Bee and Hound, I would be nothing more than a smoking crater in the ground. He would not have let me get away, neutral or not.

I was still keening in little blips of sound as Hound held me out to Ratchet. My optics shuddered, going offline at my request. I did not want to see the parts of me coming out. Feeling the pain as sensors were ripped and torn was quite enough for me. Quietly, and for the first time in my tiny little life, I said a silent prayer that my end came swiftly. And that maybe, possibly, I might become one with the Matrix.

Moments went by without so much as a sound. No hand came at me, no lazer-sharp agony as the cutting began. Not even a ghost of wind against my metal shell to let me know there was movement above or around me. There was… nothing.

Had I already offlined? Was this kind of quiet what it meant to be in the Matrix? Cautiously, I turned on one optic, lifting the guard…

… and found myself optic to optic with the source of my fears.

He lifted an eyebrow ridge. "Are you finished, little one?" he asked, a touch of annoyance in his tone and yet it was still soft. Still non-threatening.

My tendrils, so much like the long hair human femmes had on their head, slithered and snaked around me, twitching to show the fear that continued to consume my spark. What could I say to that? Why was he waiting so long to get on with it? And then a horrible thought occurred to me. What if he was worse than Scalpel? What if he wanted to hear me scream, make me watch as he took me apart piece by tiny piece?

It didn't matter, I had to force myself to admit. So what if he wanted to listen to me scream? Was there anything I could do about it? No. There was nothing. Not one tiny idiotic thing I could do. I lowered my head, tendrils going slack and lifeless around me.

"Yes," I whispered, utterly defeated. "Just please, tell Charlotte that I'm sorry. Tell her that Zoe… that her friendship with me meant so much."

Ratchet blinked, his eyebrow plates drawing down in a frown. And then my words must have finally sunk into his processors. The huge mech vented air in a sigh and reached both hands out to me. When I didn't move, Hound carefully placed me in his open palms.

"Is Zoe your human designation?" Ratchet asked.

I nodded in return. "It is what I call myself. Charlotte was nice to me, she… she welcomed me and gave me food. Human food, but still… the gesture was there. Please, spare her? Let her live her human life in peace. I… I won't fight you in return, okay?"

"Fight me? No, little femme. You misunderstand. I'm not going to hurt you. On the contrary, I want to see what I can do to help you. Tell me, what is your true designation?"

My spark clenched painfully in its chamber. "I… I don't have one."

"She was at Iacon, Ratchet, of that much we have been able to learn," Hound put in gently. "It's possible that she blocked those pieces of memory after that tragedy, up to and including her designation. It has been done before."

Ratchet nodded once, his optics still on me. I felt the first scan go across my protoform, and a blip of sound left me again before I could stop it. The scan didn't hurt at all. It was just… unusual. Something I never thought I would feel from another of my kind. Not unless they were doing it to hurt me, or unless they thought I was lying. Thundercracker used to use his scans to…

I pushed that memory away. I wasn't his drone anymore. I was Zoe, a neutral.

"You have a few minor coding deviations within your mainframe, Zoe," Ratchet replied, again sending another scan my way. "And there are a few tiny repairs that would improve your functionality. May I perform them?"

This time I blinked at him, optics going wide with surprise. "You are asking me?"

"I am not a Decepticon, little one. I will never invade your shell without your permission, unless it is to save your spark."

I glanced over at Bumblebee and Hound, received murmurs of encouragement in return. I nodded to the medic, trying not to tremble as I was placed back into Hound's hands and Ratchet transformed his fingers into the tools he would need. "Then, can I go back to my roommate?"

Ratchet hesitated a moment, shooting a glance to the hulking Ironhide. They must have exchanged a private comm. as Ratchet appeared to nod to himself. "Let us finish the repairs. We will talk about that afterwards."

What else could I do? I let this strange mech play with my systems.

~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~

Ratchet and Ironhide stood some distance away, engaged in a rather visibly animated but otherwise silent conversation. It was one thing I noted distinctly that humans and Cybertronian's had in common. No matter how quiet we could communicate, we both used gestures and motions to articulate the degree of our emotional state when worked up about something. Humans did it with much more noise and fanfare, having to actually speak to be understood.

Cybertronians took it to a whole new level.

Ironhide didn't like me, and that bit of social revelation had nothing to do with my own fears and everything to do with the glares he sent my way. I tried to look as non assuming as possible, lowering my optics when I felt his scraping across the whole of my being. The gesture was meant to be one of respect, one to show that he was more powerful than I, and that my little spark was nothing in comparison to his.

It should have made him happy, the display of submission. Instead, it just irritated him all the more.

I stared down at my tiny three-pronged hands from where I sat on Hound's shoulder, trying to loose myself in the wonder of realizing that these were my hands. I was aware that they were my hands, and I could make them do what I wanted. Of course, I had always acknowledged that I had appendages for with to perform the various tasks I was assigned. I was a drone after all, programmed with at least a slight awareness of self. But never was I independent enough to want to do something more than what I was assigned.

My hands were my own now, and if I wanted to draw with them, or create or just stare at them in wonder, I could do that.

"You must have been through a lot," Hound murmured.

I went utterly still, the only way I knew how to show surprise without drawing attention to myself. Hound was staring at me out of the corner of his optic, watching the way I wove my hands, flexed my fingers. Those same fingers grasped a handful of my tendrils, drawing them closer around myself like a shield as I tried to make myself smaller, more inconsequential.

"Easy, Zoe, I meant no disrespect," he said quickly, frowning a bit at my reaction. "Just talking out loud. You don't have to answer."

Silence would have been prudent. In fact, silence would have been the Decepticon thing to do. But I wasn't one of them anymore, and I felt that I owed it to these gentle mechs to at least attempt to repay their kindness. For as much as I feared the big yellow and green medic, and as much as my spark nearly fritzed to pieces when Ironhide swept a wary gaze my way, I did know a kind of safety in their company.

Don't ask me how I knew it, but I truly believed that they weren't going to hurt me. And contact with my own kind held a certain allure I could not deny. Maybe it was a throwback to being a drone, to being used to the fact that when my usefulness was done, I would be stored in some random compartment on Thundercracker's frame. Still, contact was contact, and safety – whether the relative safety of knowing very few who would challenge Thundercracker and thus I would not come to damage in his compartment, or being in connection with Hound and Bumblebee – was safety.

"I'm…. sorry," I replied softly. "I… I wish I had a way to explain. The things I've experienced…"

"No need, little femme," he smiled sadly. "I was there, too. And I don't like to talk about it, either. I guess I wanted you to know that, if you wanted to, you could talk to me. I won't judge, not after surviving that same massacre."

I lowered my head again, feeling an entirely new sensation thrumming through my spark: shame. I was letting them believe that what I had witnessed at Iacon was horrible to me, that I was a survivor of that attack and not part of it. Not that I had willingly and gleefully slaughtered so many of my own kind. But how could I tell them that I had been a drone, ordered and programmed to kill, and yet after one kiss with that human I was no longer mindless and obediant? Did I even understand that?

Yes.

No.

Maybe if I tried to talk about it, it would somehow make sense?

"There was light," I said at length, trembling on his shoulder armor, letting myself remember that one brush of holographic lip to human lip. "There was so much light and it was everywhere. Invading my frame, my circuits, the very core of my processors. I couldn't block it out, and no amount of protective protocols or battle routines could stop it. I was powerless and afraid as the light consumed me."

I felt 'Bee's fingertip touch my back plating, sliding in a gentle smooth line down my spinal structure. Comforting me as I spoke.

"It changed me," my voice trembled. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It changed me and I had awareness for the first time in my entire life. I was aware of pain and agony and how actions could ricochet out and touch other lives even if we don't mean them to. If I could take it all back, all the past and regret, I would. I'd give it all up to undo the harm that was caused in the name of taking and giving orders."

"We all would," Hound agreed. "I would trade my spark in an astrosecond to bring us back to the brink before the war. I have a feeling you would do the same. And events like Iacon change us all. You should have no shame in that. It's the pain and the memories we carry that firm our resolve to never let that kind of thing happen again."

He was missing the point, and I curved in on myself even more. Here I was, trying to explain that I was very sorry for trying to kill Sam Witwicky, that I had been ordered to do so. But in attempting to follow through on those orders, I had touched something inside their human friend, something that was more than his memories and greater than the sum of all our sparks together. They all thought I was referring to the devastation of Iacon. Was that my fault? Was I explaining it wrong? Feeling 'Bee cupping me between his palms, not trying to lift me but trying to provide comfort and shelter, let me know that I was.

If they knew what I had done, if they knew what I had tried to do to Samuel, those hands would be snapping together and crushing me like an organic bug.

I was saved the further humiliation of trying to put words to abstract concepts of energy and life that I didn't understand myself as Ratchet and Ironhide finished their conversation. Heavy thumps of angry treads on the soft earth had me jumping in spite of my resolve to stay small and non-threatening. Hound turned to look at his commander, 'Bee letting me go but still placing that comforting finger against my back.

"Optimus Prime would like to speak with you," Ironhide rumbled.

And I thought I had experienced fear before. I was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.


	8. Chapter 8 Shopping?

A/N: This is a rather short chapter, but after all the positive reviews I have received (Thank you all so very much! ::bounces around in happy circles::) I was inspired to write the next chapter. This one is completely un-beta'ed. So if there are any problems, bad spelling, or strangeness in how it sounds, it is all my fault. Please don't blame my beta's.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs. Please don't sue. This is purely for fun!

* * *

I was going to meet Optimus Prime soon, the one being in the entire universe that I truly feared.

I could process nothing else in the cycles that followed. Charlotte had kindly refused to comment on the despondent and depressed way I carried myself. Perhaps she thought it was the sorrow that had lead to my sobbing during our first meeting. Perhaps it was a strange human custom to leave others alone in their misery that I had yet to research. Regardless of the reasons, she offered quiet sympathy, gentle friendship, and cup after cup of a concoction called 'hot cocoa.'

I drank each one, pretending to savor the flavor of it as I had seen her do with her first sip. A quick internet scan showed that the liquid was a delicacy among human females, and scientific research supported the notion that a chemical within the piping hot substance activated certain neural receptors within the organic female brain. The portions stimulated had to do with pleasure and joy, and as such I allowed my mood to climb by degrees with each cup she handed me.

The result was a lot of trips to the ladies room to purge my holding tank. The other side effect was at least my supposed better mood appeared to elevate Charlotte's attitude as well. And, oddly enough, watching her smile and laugh had a way of truly elevating mine. How odd, that the joy of another creature could inspire joy in myself as well. It was a new sensation and an entirely new theory to test.

Perhaps there was something to the small smiles on Hound and Bumblebee's faces when I was released to return to my dorm. At first I had assumed it was just a standard facial expression they had adopted when their plates were not in motion. Like Megatron's perpetual glare, or Thundercracker's stolid and emotionless visage. Had they truly found delight in helping me?

It was another thing to ponder as I browsed the racks of clothing.

"How about this one?"

Charlotte held up an article of clothing made of pure cotton fibers, the color of which was said to complement a 'summer' complexion. I had to stop myself from replying before I turned my head to view the item. Humans did not possess three hundred and sixty degree scanning capabilities. As she was standing behind me at the moment, the appropriate reaction would be to turn my head and view the item first, then comment.

It was a slightly annoying habit, but one I was going to have to learn if I was to fit in with the humans.

"Or this one? I think this will be better on you," she continued, holding up a second dress before I could comment on the first.

I obliged her, turning enough to see what was called a 'little black dress.' Another quick scan of the internet told me the item was considered essential to a woman's wardrobe. Though the material and cut made it less likely for an evening's festivities, and more appropriate for a daytime trip. I shrugged a shoulder, and made my lips form into a smile.

"Do you like it?" I asked.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and grinned. "Zoe, for the last time, I'm not shopping for me. _We_ are shopping for _you_. These are going to be your clothes. _You_ need to have an opinion on them. For goodness sake, I've never met a girl that had so little interest in her own appearance. Now come on, do you like it in black or do you like it in this dark green?"

Charlotte held them up one by one and my hologram narrowed her eyes as if trying to decide. Inwardly, my optics spun with mingled dread and delight. I had not thought about colors before. Was I supposed to like one more than the other? Was that even allowed? As I examined the two garments carefully, I noted that one was not fully cotton fiber, but had a synthetic plastic-like weave through the cloth. Spandex, it was called.

That just added more fuel to my agitation. What about the fabrics? Was I allowed to not like one fabric over the other? Was one bad and one good? And if I selected that one fabric, was I allowed to change my mind and wear a different fabric later on? There were too many choices, too many decisions that had to be made, and Charlotte seemed to make them without a care in the world. Could it be that her organic brain processed these things at a much more rapid speed than I thought possible for her race?

Again, I didn't have time to ponder further as Charlotte grabbed my arm and drug me before a three-way mirror. "You can't decide just by staring at them, either, huh?" she laughed, slipping the hangar over my head so that the gown rested on top of my current clothing. "Let's see what color works better against your skin. Maybe that will help."

I stared at my reflection, and felt my eyes going wide. "This one," I found myself saying.

The dark green made my eyes pop against the color, my reddish hair glowed like someone had poured liquid copper down the fine threads of it. I didn't need to try the black one. This was the gown that I wanted. It was soft and supple, with a fitted waist and a scoop to the top that showed just the right amount of flesh to be considered flirty but tasteful.

It was not the death-by-sex dress that Thundercracker and Soundwave had designed for my Alice image. This was something I had chosen, and I wanted it with a passion that defied my logic center.

I could tell by Charlotte's reaction that she had the same feeling. "This one is it," she nodded somberly, and then her trademark kind smile returned and she threw her arms around my neck, pressing a kiss to my cheek. "See? This isn't so bad. We are building some great memories already. You aren't alone Zoe, not with me by your side. Now we just have to get you a boyfriend and I'm sure you'll forget all about the bad stuff."

Boyfriend… Could I have one of those? From what I had seen in Sam's memories, it was considered a great and sacred honor to be a boyfriend to a girl. It was something he cherished. I thought back to the boys I had seen on and off campus, and for reasons I really could not understand, I could not stop thinking of one human male in particular.

Leo. Sam's roommate. Or more to the point, how Leo had reacted to me.

I rubbed the material of the dress between my thumb and forefinger, wondering if Leo would look at Zoe the same way he had looked at Alice. Wondering if I would know the thrill of kissing him. I shuttered my optics, my holoform closing her eyes, imagining what such a kiss would feel like. I knew the feel of Sam's lips already, and delightful as that was, I could not risk a repeat of it at this point. Not if Bumblebee would detect any trace of him on my form.

That would mean certain death. I was not ready for that. I don't think any mech ever was.

And yet, as I let my processors spin out computations of what kissing Leo would be like, I was surprised that I thought of yet another male altogether… Hound. My memory banks pulled up the image of his optics glancing at me, the feel of his armored shoulder as I sat there, leaning against his helm. His energy patterns were warm and tingling, his spark thrumming with a steady strength that I envied…

"You have got to tell me what you're thinking about," Charlotte giggled, bringing me back from my memories.

"What do you mean?"

"That look on your face a moment ago," she smiled, flipping her hair over her shoulder in a way that caught the light, making it shine like strands of ebony silk. "Something tells me you already have plans for this dress, and they involve more than just going to class in it."

She wiggled her eyebrows at me in a suggestive way, and I felt my cooling fans kick in. Obediently, my holoform blushed a dark scarlet color. Anticipation raced through my systems, wanting so much to see Hound again and… well, if it couldn't be Samuel, wanting to see Leo's eyes light up instead at the sight of me in this article of clothing. Looking at _me_, not at some wet dream brought to life.

"Maybe I do," I replied cheekily, winking an eye at her through the mirror.

Indeed, maybe I do.


	9. Chapter 9 Surprise

A/N: It's been a while. Life has a way of getting in front of the enjoyable things like writing. But here is a new chapter! Thank you for sticking with this one during my long absence. :)

This one has not been beta'd. Any mistakes are my own.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything but my OC's. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.

I did not have to fake the impatience that vibrated through my frame, and, as a consequence, through my holoform. I was to meet with Optimus Prime tonight, and that bit of knowledge had a way of making time simultaneously slow down and speed up. Hours seem to pass before the second hand on the human chronometer would move but a millimeter. And then I would jolt to find an entire class session had passed in what I thought was a blink of my optic as I replayed over and over Hound's transmission to me:

"_Meet us tonight. Same place as before. Same time. He'll be there. Don't be late."_

The idea to run filtered through my processors more than once. I didn't need to ask who 'he' was, knowing it would be the Autobot leader, himself. The Last Prime. I was going to meet the last prime, and I wasn't going to be doing it with a weapon in hand. No wonder my survival protocols fairly screamed at me to run far, run fast, and above all else, run _now_.

To add to my anxiety, I would see a flash of yellow or of military green as I walked between buildings on my way to class. Hound and Bumblebee, I knew, watching over me most likely in an attempt to protect. Never realizing that they felt more like jailors than protectors in that moment.

Charlotte sat beside me in our Calculus I class, her lovely face scrunched up in lines of concentration, trying to grasp the principals tossed about by our professor like they were free-floating particles. It bored me near to offlining trying to think in only three dimensions, and so while I copied her facial expressions to better blend in with the rest of the students, I completed all the research papers required for our previous class-Classical Humanities-for the entire semester and stored them under a subroutine to be printed as needed.

Next would be our English class, though I decided to hold off on that one until I had the syllabus in hand. I had learned the hard way that most human teachers changed the course requirements as it suited their moods. Pulling down last semester's Astronomy syllabus, for example, from the college mainframe and completing all the assignments while in Classical Humanities had resulted in a lot of wasted effort. I was not about to complete coursework again that would not be needed.

It was better to wait until our teacher handed out his or her requirements.

Charlotte swore beneath her breath, crossing out an entire page worth of calculations and quickly flipping to a clean sheet in her notebook. I glanced at her page and noted with a bit of quiet pride how she was half a step ahead of what the professor was teaching on this day. A quick scan on the work of those nearest me revealed that she had grasped the concepts with far greater skill than most. Always she complained about the subject being too difficult, when in actuality she was going to excel at it.

Why she was wasting her time with a degree in History was beyond me. My friend did not belong in the halls of the Historians. From what I witnessed of her cognitive abilities, she would be better served in one of the Engineering guilds or whatever passed for such in human society. I made a mental note to ask her about that later. After almost being tossed from our Humanities class yesterday for talking too much, the human custom of silence within a teacher's classroom had been firmly imprinted in my memory banks.

Besides, the very idea of walking out into that hallway alone… to be without distraction so that my processors would turn towards the night to come… it was too much.

And so I chose to remain silent, letting my scanners continue to drift over my classmates. Which, in hindsight, was a huge mistake. Because my scanners touched on the very reason why Bumblebee and Hound were constantly around me.

It wasn't for my benefit.

Samuel James Witwicky and Leo Spintz sat ten rows behind Charlotte and I, near the back of the room, their pencils scratching with horrible clarity to my audio sensors. They were both wounded, I noted with more than a little distress. Sam's left hand and the right side of his neck both sported the cotton-white of bandages. Leo had the lingering traces of healing cuts and scrapes to his face and hands. My spark sank in its casing and my holoform nearly snapped the pencil in my hands into pieces. Samuel James Witwicky and Leo Spintz were in my Calculus class.

They. Were. In. my. Calculus. _CLASS! _I could all but sense the energy signatures of a dozen or so Autobots saturating them.

Frantically, I searched my memory banks only to feel my spark sink further. I had been so obsessed with the thought of meeting Prime tonight that I had failed to notice Sam and Leo in almost every class I attended that day. No wonder Bee and Hound had been everywhere I was, everywhere I had traveled all day long. They weren't following me.

They were following Sam. A very wounded, tired-looking Sam.

My programming snapped, my self-preservation systems engaging before I knew what I was doing. "I have to go," I said aloud, rising to my feet, my voice so filled with panic that I nearly shrieked the words.

The professor and the rest of the class all stared up at me, their faces displaying a multitude of emotions ranging from amused to angry that I had interrupted their scheduled learning time. My legs wanted to give out, what little I had in the way of weapons systems wanting to power up. Charlotte's hand grasped mine, her features twisted with concern and shock.

"What are you doing?" she whispered hurriedly. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Miss," my professor called loudly, forcing my eyes back up on his. "If you need to leave my class, please do so quietly and without disruption to the rest of the students. Though I warn you, young lady, I _do_ take attendance and it _will _impact your grade."

With that, he dismissed me. And with that, I was running through the doors, my books and belongings forgotten. Sunlight hit my sensors as I made my frantic flight out of the building, out of any location that put me in approximation to Sam. My processors pulled up every scrap of intel I had on the boy, playing them in rapid fire succession. Images of his childhood captured from videos posted onto the internet, snippets of conversation relayed from Thundercracker when I served as his drone. It was all aimed at the singular purpose of destroying Sam.

Thundercracker's orders flashed in my memory banks. _"You will assume the shape of a human girl as designed by Soundwave. You will implant a probe into the boy's mind. You will download every bit of knowledge in his brain. You will kill him and report to me."_

I was running wildly, so much so that I careened off of other students and parked cars, a tiny cry leaving my vocal processor that sounded suspiciously like a human sob. And still my own memories chased me, Thundercracker's old orders so vivid and ingrained in my programming that I nearly doubled back and headed straight to Sam. Why couldn't I have a life of my own? Was it my fate to constantly run into Autobots and their human companions? WHY couldn't I just be left alone? I didn't want to hurt anyone. I wasn't a bad cybertronian now. I just wanted to learn and laugh and… and…

… and not slam into Bumblebee's hood with a force hard enough to rattle my components. Yet another disappointment in a crappy day of them.

"I can't do it," I gritted out between my holoform's clenched teeth, palms slamming down on that shiny yellow hood. "I can't meet him tonight. You have to cancel. I can't do this. I don't want to be part of the war. I don't want any part of this at all. You can't force me. You won't force me. I won't let you!"

By him, I obviously meant Optimus Prime. That was about as much power and truth as that whole babble of statements held. Bumblebee and Hound could most assuredly force me to do anything they wanted. I hadn't a fraction of the power in their frames, nor the experience to know how to get my way out of these kinds of situations. I lost control of those options the moment I climbed into Bumblebee's alt mode.

By Primus, I might as well have painted the Autobot symbol across my form for all the good my "independence" did for me. I was about as independent as a laser cannon on Ironhide's arm. Which was to say, I wasn't. At all.

"Calm down, calm down," Hound's voice echoed in my audio receivers, and his holoform—a very attractive older man with soft grey eyes and dark black hair winged at the temples with silver—placed hands on my shoulders. "What can't you do and why?"

"I can't meet him," I said again, bowing my head in shame. "You know which him I mean. I can't do it. I'm not ready. I… I just want to be left alone."

"He isn't going to hurt you," Hound replied, one finger tipping my chin upwards to look him in the eyes. "I promise you that."

"I wish I could believe you," I muttered, trying to hug myself. Trying not to fly apart at my welding points with fear. "I like my life, Hound. I like being alive. I don't want to lose that."

"Why did you leave your class?" Bumblebee broke in, his holoform sliding out from behind the wheel of his alt mode. Unlike Hound, his eyes were deep blue and serious and seemed to bore right through my spark. "We felt your energy surge. Did something happen?"

I took a deep breath like I had observed other humans doing before relating bad news. "I did not realize that Sam and Leo were in my classes. I… I could feel your energies on them," I said truthfully, if not telling the whole truth. "I freaked out. I'm alone here, you realize. And I'm okay with that for the most part, as long as I don't come into conflict with anyone else. I don't want to end up offlined because I interacted with either of your charges."

What I really wanted to say was because I tried to kill Sam and Leo and failed. But was it really me that tried to kill them? Was I accountable for the sins of a past that I had no control over? Human law said that I was. Having no databank of Cybertronian law in which to search, I had plowed through human law right after my first meeting with the Autobots. Human law did not allow for the excuse of 'I was just following orders' to excuse things like multiple murders or the overthrowing of a government. What did Autobot law say about such things?

Was I willing to find out?

Hound took my hand in his, staring down into my optics with his own. "At least let Optimus speak with you. Let him speak before you decide you want to live the rest of your existence as a neutral or an outcast."

I lowered my head and sighed. It looked like I was going meet with Prime after all. I had no choice.


	10. Chapter 10 Optimus Prime

A/N: Look, an update! If anyone is still following this story, you have my eternal thanks and my promise I do have every intention of completing it. Life, however, has its own way of screwing up the best plans though. So I promise to keep up as best as I can. I hope this chapter does not dissapoint.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.

* * *

I was wearing the dark green dress that Charlotte and I had purchased together.

It wasn't appropriate for climbing through the wooded areas near the campus, nor were the muted gold-toned pumps I wore on my feet. Neither was appropriate for my meeting with the great Optimus Prime, to say the least! But they made me feel good. Charlotte had said that the outfit, along with a simple golden chain around my neck and little gold hoops in my earlobes, made me look "empowered." And wasn't I supposed to feel powerful when facing the one mech in the universe that scared me more than death?

Decepticons wanted to feel powerful all the time. It was why they scavenged armor pieces and fitted them over their chasis until they looked like nightmares come to life. Fear was power to them. Fear was their 'hot chocolate,' making their processors light up with pleasure. Charlotte's power was sunlight and fabric, scented sprays and laughter. And hair of all things. I would be unkind to my friend if I did not mention the time she spent working on her hair to feel "empowered."

I had sat before the vanity in our shared room and let Charlotte play with my hair until she had styled it to perfection. She assumed I was going to meet a 'hot date' tonight, and the fact that I would not tell her who I was meeting only served to confirm this in her mind. I did not have the spark to tell her that I was possibly walking to my death tonight, that this might be the last time in this life that we would ever speak. So I let her do what she loved to do and made my holoform smile and giggle at all the right moments.

Charlotte hugged me tightly before shoving me out the door, making me promise to tell her all about the fun when I got back.

I cried all the way to the edge of campus, and then I cried that long five mile walk through the woods to the appointed meeting place. Several times I had thought to flee, to simply start running and never look back. The images of Hound stopped me, however. I wasn't going to repay his kindness with treachery. I had promised to come to the clearing tonight. I had promised to meet with Optimus Prime. And if this was the last action I would ever take of my own free will, then I would take it as an honorable and loyal Cybertronian.

All I had in this world was my spark, my friendship with Charlotte, and my word. Those would have to be enough.

He was taller than I had imagined, standing in the center of the clearing as if the trees themselves had made room for him. Optimus Prime, the last true leader of our kind, was lit only by the light of the stars and the thrum of his own power. I felt that power as I made my way through the trees and into the clearing, arms wrapped around myself to stop the shaking. I wanted to cry as I approached, to fall to my knees and weep and beg forgiveness. I was willing to crawl to him, slither on my chasis if he wished it, just to stay in his presence.

His power was warmth and welcome. Like 'Bee's spark had been, only about a hundred times stronger. It was so unlike the others I had known, so unlike Megatron and his razor-sharp hatred and circuit-paralyzing cold. I wanted to live in that warmth, to bask in it. And I was ready to do anything to achieve that, even tell him the dreaded truth…

It was the rustle of that human-made dark green fabric that snapped me back into reality. I was half-way to my knees, and the thought of Charlotte's disappointment if I came back with dirt rubbed into the dress was more than I could bear. Her smile rose up from my memory banks, her laughter and kindness pushing back against the inviting warmth of leadership that poured from Optimus Prime like a torrent. I knew that if I joined the Autobots now, I would have to leave Charlotte behind. I could not trade her friendship, even for the warm protection of Autobot command.

That made me stand up straight again, and for the first time in my life, I did not feel alone. I did not shed my holoform. And that simple human dress felt more powerful to me than any armor in the known universe.

Optimus seemed to notice the change in me, those blue optics spinning as they regarded my tiny holoform. "You are Zoe," he said.

"I am, my Prime," I answered formally, bowing my head. "Thank you. I am honored."

Optimus blinked once, twice. "Honored?"

"That you would use my designation, my Prime. I _**am **_Zoe. It is my name, the one I wish to keep."

He was silent a moment, contemplating my words. It made me like him more. Made me feel less and less like a drone. "Then I welcome you, Zoe," he finally replied. "I am Optimus Prime. You do not need to use the title."

I nodded, feeling my new-found courage starting to dissipate. This was not going as expected. It was going _better _than expected, and that wasn't something I was accustomed to. Where were the questions, the interrogations? Where were the demands for loyalty, the branding iron that would forever imprint the Autobot emblem upon my form? And what about the tithes of parts and energon, the slavery as I was placed into service? It was all the things the Decepticons feared from the Autobots, all the things I had been programmed to loathe since my creation.

"Thank you, Optimus. I… I am honored," I muttered again, keeping my head bowed.

Shifted to the left and right let me know that Hound and 'Bee were nearby, circling towards me. I could already pick out the warmth of their energy, tiny and nearly insubstantial compared to the ocean that was Optimus, but still there. Still distinguishable. Still offering their help and support and trying to keep me from becoming afraid. Optimus noticed them as well, holding up one hand that stalled them. And then he knelt down, this giant of power and strength. Humbly knelt down to be on eye-level with me, or as close to it as his massive frame could manage.

I jumped back before I could stop myself, my holoform flickering as my anxiety built up. What was he doing? He was a leader, a Prime! He shouldn't be lowering himself for anyone or anything. Megatron certainly wouldn't have done that, not for any living thing in the universe. Or nonliving for that matter.

"Be calm," Optimus said gently. "I know you are afraid. I know that Hound and Bumblebee have reassured you that I mean you no harm. Why do you fear?"

"Because I am unused to such kindness," I managed truthfully, bluntly. "You should not lower yourself to my level. I am but a humble… being. I do not deserve such honor."

He remained where he was, tilting his head slightly from side to side. "I hold no honor over you, Zoe. I serve the good that is our race, nothing more. I would help you, if you would let me."

It was my turn to tilt my head to the side, to stare at this magnificent mech with wonder and curiosity. "Why?"

"Because freedom is the right of all sentient life."

"And you see me as sentient? You really do?" I couldn't help but gape at him, at the absurdity of the conversation. He could crush me without a flutter of an optic guard, and yet he called me as an equal. My confusion rose. "Why? Why would you want to help me? No one else has ever wanted to help me, except—"

I cut off before I said her name aloud. I wasn't going to give her up to the Autobots, not until I was certain that this wasn't a ploy of some kind.

"Except what?"

My spark fluttered painfully in its casing, my hands rising to cover it protectively. "Except Hound and 'Bee." I finished. It wasn't exactly a lie.

"Then let us alter that plan for you, Zoe. I offer you the protection of the Autobots for as long as you wish it," he answered, rising back to his full height. "I have seen the protectiveness in your spark, and the willingness to come here because you have given your word. Regardless of your fear, you kept your word of honor to Hound and Bumblebee. If only for that reason alone, I would welcome you."

"But you had other reasons," I persisted, stepping closer to him. That last statement had been too open-ended, and my paranoia would not let it go.

"Yes. Hound and Bumblebee have spoken highly of you, young Zoe. They have also spoken of your past. I would offer you respite from that. The sins of the war that destroyed our home no longer apply to you. Whole generations have been lost, too many to hold to past anger. The question now rests in your hands. Will you stay with us?"

It was a damn good question. And probably the most important one I would ever answer.


End file.
